Employment and human resource development

While it is a prerequisite for each employee to develop his or her career autonomously, we take the initiative in their early development, especially with new entrants by placing them in a nurturing period. Our career development program is a mechanism for the company to provide strong support for this effort.

The Career Development Program is designed to promote effective development of overall competency skills by grasping the abilities of individual employees, utilizing them for personnel management, and assigning the right person to the right position and job in accordance with their mid- to long-term career plans. Furthermore, we aim to ensure fair treatment by reflecting employees’ overall competency via an internal grading system and other means.

The main feature of Takenaka Corporation's New Employee Training Program is the one one-year time frame it takes to acquire a wide range of knowledge. New employees, which we refer to as apprentices, from all over Japan experience dormitory life at the Fukae Chikuyu Dormitory for one year while rotating through two to three departments for practical training. In their assigned departments, they learn about pertinent roles and workflow while actually taking charge of their work.

During this time, they acquire much knowledge and many skills. Their perspectives are also broadened by experiencing multiple departments in a short period of time (typically four to six months per posting to each department). This one-year period is also an important time to form personal networks between classmates and people in the divisions where they rotate. These are the foundation of each individual's career and the cornerstone of Takenaka Corporation's overall strength and human resource capabilities.

Takenaka Corporation has a variety of human resource development programs to encourage the realization of individual career plans. We support employees who continue to work hard to achieve their dreams by tackling challenges they set for themselves, such as acquiring specialized knowledge and experience, extensive training in global business, and by utilizing a program that allows them to study abroad in specialized fields.

The experiences and personal networks that trainees forge through the Career Development Training Program are assets both to the trainees and to the Takenaka Group. In order to strengthen the group’s human resource base, we will continue to create opportunities and mechanisms to enhance group unity and create synergy effects by utilizing these valuable assets and by boosting opportunities for understanding work and personnel exchange.

We actively encourage employees to obtain national and private qualifications, such as licensed first-class architect and so on through seminars and in-house mock examinations. The number of Takenaka employees who hold first-class architect licenses ranks among the highest in our industry (as of January 2023).

Licensed first-class building works execution managers: 2,432
First-class construction management engineers: 2,336
Licensed professional engineers: 192
Ph.D.s: 120

The Takenaka Training Center, Takumi is located in Seiwadai, Kawanishi City, Hyogo Prefecture. Participants from all over Japan gather there to study, discuss, and sometimes compete with each other in a verdant natural setting to enhance their skills and deepen their knowledge. Completed in 1972 on a hill overlooking the Ina River, the center has tennis courts, a baseball field, and an athletic track.

In 2007, a project was launched to revitalize the facility into an intellectually creative training center. More than 100 personnel from various company departments worked to complete the project. Human resources are the most important assets for management to support sustainable corporate activities. The “message” that is sent from the human resources of today to those of the future has been embedded in the new Takenaka Training Center.

The reborn Takenaka Training Center, Takumi is a space where people can immerse themselves in training and then refresh during breaks. Whether by coffee in the lounge or a walk in the courtyard, the center, perched atop a hill, offers a comfortable environment enveloped in gentle light and tranquility. We also create opportunities for active communication in the hope that a change of pace and casual conversation with colleagues at a place far removed from everyday life will help foster new “awareness.”

In 2018, we completed a lodge surrounded by warm timber, with rooms open to the Seiwadai Forest, where users can feel the abundance of greenery and trees. It provides a place for self-reflection between training sessions while affording a feeling for the richness of nature in a remote location.

Takenaka Practical Technology Training Center, Omoi is located on the premises of Takenaka Training Center - Takumi. The Center’s basic policy is to ensure that the process of creating quality--assets that accumulate value over years--is passed on to the next generation. This is accomplished through hands-on training in which trainees see, touch, and experience in order to acquire the kata (form) for the craft of making things, and cultivate the basics of the toryo (master builder) spirit, refined with sensibility and knowledge. In particular, employees involved in making things are required to practice the principle of actual things at actual places in real time. Against this backdrop, we opened the center as a place where trainees could learn the above-mentioned kata for the craft of making things.

Training is offered to Takenaka's technical employees and to the heads of our supporting affiliates, and is divided into categories: construction, equipment, design, supervision and quality control, repair work, safety, and subcontracting. Programs are in place for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, and training covers a wide range of topics, including reinforced concrete work, control points for preventing water leakage and accident safety. We also provide training for local global staff.